The segment I’m on is preceded by a bedside interview with the man’s family as they prayed for a recovery. I’m here to promote a run of shows in Mexico City. The stunt is an escape from a wooden sarcophagus that is to be weighted down and dropped into the bottom of a lake dating from the Aztec era when Mexico City was called Tenochtitlán. You know, the usual.

As the chubby-fingered host secures me in chains and makes a few rude pats that would have gotten him banned from American television, a Mexican history professor cheerfully explains to the audience that this lake was once near a sacrificial temple and that they’ve found scores of bones belonging to murdered people at the bottom and I may soon be joining them.

The last thing I see before they hammer the coffin shut is the full moon. As workers pound the nails into the lid, they make a funny squeaking sound I’ve never heard before. From childhood in my family’s workshop, I know the sounds and scents of different wood. I smell the wood and realize that while the ornate lid, carved with Aztec deities, is the same one I had constructed, the rest of the coffin is new.

The producers would later claim that they didn’t do anything to the coffin. When my uncle found the original bottom half sitting at the back of a studio workshop, they changed their story to say it was damaged in transit and they had to replace it last-minute.

The chains are easy to get off. I’ve always been flexible and able to slip out of things without too much trouble. The difficulty is trying to keep them from falling off prematurely. But the real problem is getting out of the sarcophagus. The secret panel I’m supposed to use to get out isn’t there. I kick the side with my high heels over and over, but it didn’t move.

I pound the side with my fists until they bruise. There’s no secret panel. I’ve been nailed into a real coffin.

I feel the impact as I hit the bottom of the lake. We measured it at twenty feet. If I’d done this in the ocean I’d keep sinking until the coffin imploded. That’s small satisfaction, knowing I can just as easily die in two feet of water. The coffin is supposed to be airtight, but it’s not. Water is filling up the interior . . .

I’M JARRED FROM THE DREAM as I feel a bump. My head hits something like carpet over metal. I’m in a trunk. I know that it’s been a common safety feature for years to put a release on the inside of a trunk in case someone gets accidentally trapped inside. I have no idea how an adult could get accidentally trapped that way, maybe a child. But here I am.

My arms are behind me. I twist my body over and reach my fingers out to where I think the back of the car is. I feel the thick plastic handle and pull on it. It yanks free. Someone has severed it from the mechanism.